The peopling of Canada was due in the main to the king. Before the accession of Louis XIV. the entire population, priests, nuns, traders, and settlers, did not exceed twenty-five hundred; * but scarcely had he reached his majority when the shipment of men to the colony was systematically begun. Even in Argenson’s time, loads of emigrants sent out by the Crown were landed every year at Quebec. The Sulpitians of Montreal also brought over colonists to people their seigniorial estate; the same was true on a small scale of one or two other proprietors, and once at least the company sent a considerable number: yet the government was the chief agent of emigration. Colbert did the work, and the king paid for it.
In 1661, Laval wrote to the cardinals of the Propaganda, that during the past two years the
* Le Clerc, Etablissement de la Foy, II 4
king had spent two hundred thousand livres on the colony; that, since 1659, he had sent out three hundred men a year; and that he had promised to send an equal number every summer during ten years. * These men were sent by squads in merchant-ships, each one of which was required to carry a certain number. In many instances, emigrants were bound on their arrival to enter into the service of colonists already established. In this case the employer paid them wages, and after a term of three years they became settlers themselves. **
The destined emigrants were collected by agents in the provinces, conducted to Dieppe or Rochelle, and thence embarked. At first men were sent from Rochelle itself, and its neighborhood; but Laval remonstrated, declaring that he wanted none from that ancient stronghold of heresy. *** The people of Rochelle, indeed, found no favor in Canada. Another writer describes them as “persons of little conscience, and almost no religion,” adding that the Normans, Percherons, Picards, and peasants of the neighborhood of Paris, are docile, industrious, and far more pious. “It is important,” he concludes, “in beginning a new colony, to sow good seed.” **** It was, accordingly, from the north-western provinces that most of the emigrants
* Lettre de Laval envoyée à Rome. 21 Oct., 1661 (extract in
Faillon from Archives of the Propaganda).
** Marie de l’Incarnation, 18 Août, 1664. These engagés
were some times also brought over by private persons.
*** Colbert a Laval, 18 Mars, 1664.
**** Mémoire de 1664 (anonymous)
were drawn. * They seem in the main to have been a decent peasantry, though writers who, from their position, should have been well informed, have denounced them in unmeasured terms. ** Some of them could read and write, and some brought with them a little money.
Talon was constantly begging for more men, till Louis XIV. at length took alarm. Colbert replied to the over-zealous intendant, that the king did not think it expedient to depopulate France, in order to people Canada; that he wanted men for his armies; and that the colony must rely chiefly on increase from within. Still the shipments did not cease; and, even while tempering the ardor of his agent, the king gave another
* See a paper by Garneau in Le National of Quebec, 28
October, 1856, embodying the results of research among the
papers of the early notaries of Quebec. The chief emigration
was from Paris, Normandy, Poitou, Pays d’Aunis, Brittany,
and Picardy. Nearly all those from Paris were sent by the
king from houses of charity.
** “Une foule d'aventuriers, ramasses au hazard en France,
presque tous de la lie du peuple, la plupart obérés de
dettes ou chargés de crimes.” etc. La Tour, Vie de Laval,
Liv. IV. “Le vice a obligé la plupart de chercher ce pays
comme un asile pour se mettre à couvert de leurs crimes,”
Meules, Dépêché de 1682. Meules was intendant in that year.
Marie de l’Incarnation, after speaking of the emigrants as
of a very mixed character, says that it would have been far
better to send a few who were good Christians, rather than
so many who give so much trouble. Lettre du—Oct., 1669.
Le Clerc, on the other hand, is emphatic in praise, calling
the early colonists, “très honnêtes gens, avant de la
probité, de la droiture, et de la religion.... L’on a
examiné et choisi les habitants, et renvoyé en France les
personnes vicieuses.” If, he adds, any such were left “ils
effacaient glorieusement par leur pénitence les taches de
leur première condition.” Charlevoix is almost as strong in
praise as La Tour in censure. Both of them wrote in the next
century. We shall have means hereafter of judging between
these conflicting statements.
proof how much he had the growth of Canada at heart. *